Trouble Times Two

Chapter Fifty-One

Saturday

I was starting to mope, big time. Everybody was inviting me over but I'd shoot a message back saying I'm busy or some bullshit like that and then smoke a cigarette, work out and then be done with my day by laying in my bed and only getting up for the necessities.

I'd managed to send in all my work and they said my attendance wasn't required anymore but Howlett said for me to still come and see him if need be and honestly, I was probably going to take him up on that offer.

I think I was going through a depressive episode on top of my actual depression and I was starting to feel even worse than I already do. I couldn't eat, sometimes I struggled to sleep, and I love sleeping, I didn't want to get out of my bed, I could hardly even think about anything other than death itself. It was concerning that I knew that I was ill and just couldn't do anything.

Maybe it was the culmination of all my years where I could hardly get any treatment, where I had to keep moving or I would get into trouble. Maybe now I was finally taking that rest I deserved from all those years taken off my relatively short life, which was taking a toll on my mental health and also effecting me physically.

Some days I couldn't stop shaking even though the thermostat was up. All my lights stayed turned off and anyone who knocked were probably just under the impression that I wasn't in and even if they did have access to my house, they couldn't come in to my room unless they were a very specific subset of people who knew that I'd literally go ballistic if I was bothered by them.

I was starting to feel like I was in a conundrum. On one end of the scale, I wanted to be left alone and just sleep for as long as possible but on the other end of the scale, I just wanted to be held and comforted.

I'd been watching a lot of romance, feel good, cheesy movies but they definitely didn't make me feel good. They sort of made me envious. Perhaps if I hadn't thrown my life away to drugs and alcohol, I could have more than just a minuscule people outside of my family who liked me and maybe I'd have found someone who loves me.

I hear someone out on the balcony and I check the cameras and can see Donovan and the same girl locking lips, very passionately against a table.

I feel a little ill and immediately close the camera because I do not want to see that. Each time I'd checked the camera, it was only him and all I could think about is how much I hate him and now that feeling had exacerbated a thousand percent.

I also felt a little pang in my chest and I just wrap myself up in my duvet and try to scrub the image of them two kissing from my mind but I also start to realise that he's seen the same girl two times in a row.

So he probably likes her.

It feels weird knowing he's capable of being loyal to someone because the only thing I have seen him being loyal to is alcohol and his family. I know his sisters don't like the girl because they kept on posting about her on their private stories and the boys had been sending me their opinions about her.

I told them just to be nice and understanding because maybe she just didn't know how to behave around them, as they could be very intimidating at the best of times but I knew she was bad. I just didn't want to be the person who ruined something for someone else.

I can't help myself but go to my mirror and look at my reflection.

What do I lack? Why can't I even go out of my room without wearing makeup and why can I let over people see me without it? Will I get better? Will I ever stop being insecure? What do people not like about me?

I hated not knowing. The feeling was like a little
pit in my stomach that started to get bigger with time. When I was kidnapped and driven to wilderness, that pit became bigger and bigger and I found myself throwing up multiple times on the journey.

I could feel it now in my throat but I try to keep it down and just act as if my worries and anxieties about myself weren't there but I could feel them. They jumped around in my stomach, laughing at me and I eventually go to the toilet and throw up. It doesn't stop and I lie down on my floor after barely managing to shut the toilet seat and flush the toilet.

I feel my body shake and I curl up into a ball on my floor.

I couldn't let anyone see me. Even when I was deathly ill and had to stay with the Shepherd's, I still had makeup on, even when I went to the hospital. Anyone seeing me now would be my current nightmare. How had it gotten to this?

I hear knocking on my balcony door and I ignore it. It can only be Donovan.

The knocking gets louder and more persistent to the point where I have to get it. I get up and put makeup on before opening the door to see Donovan sitting there, waiting.

"What do you want?" I ask and he hands me his phone and Maisie is on the other side of the phone.

"Grab your documents of ownership. Take photos, lock all your gates, lock all your doors and windows. Get Donovan to help you and go to his house and stay there." She doesn't have to tell me twice.

I grab Donovan's hand and tell him what she told me and he does so when he sees how serious I am. Dacre comes out to help and we manage to close to close all the windows and doors and I take photos of my documents of ownership and send to Maise, Carter and Dacre and then hide them in my study where no one will find them as this study was made after I moved back in. I grab copies of the ownership document and then leave through my door and lock that and sit in Dacre's room.

Maisie comes up and sits me down.